Hydraulic cylinder and piston combinations are being increasingly used in fields that involve the moving and positioning of material and objects. As the various applications of hydraulic cylinder and piston combinations have progressed, more stringent operational criteria are being encountered, and a need has developed to precisely, reliably and continuously sense the position of the piston and it's related displacement parameters, velocity and acceleration.
A promising approach developing in the art employs the use of electromagnetic waves in the hydraulic fluid in the cylinder in determining the position of the piston. In one aspect of this approach, the wave performance in the fluid in the cylinder is comparable to wave performance in a transmission line with shorted ends in that the resonance frequency of an electromagnetic standing wave correlates directly with the transmission line length when the length of the interior of the cylinder between the end and the piston is considered the cavity and the end and the piston are considered to be the shorted ends of the transmission line.
One application of the use of electromagnetic waves for piston position sensing is shown in U.S. Pat. 4,588,953 wherein the frequency, of electromagnetic waves introduced into the cylinder between the closed end of the cylinder and the piston, is swept between two limits with the frequency of the detected resonant peak being indicative of the piston position.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,737,705 improvement is achieved by providing a coaxial resonant cavity, that is a cavity with a central core member, and in which the electromagnetic waves are launched and propagated in the mode referred to as the transverse electromagnetic wave (TEM) mode. The cylinder on the rod side of the piston is one type of coaxial cavity.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,182,979, further improvement is made by detecting the resonance frequency values in signal processing sections for transmitting and receiving, the receiving one of which compensates for differences in insertion losses as the linear extension of the piston and rod in the cylinder takes place.
As progress in the art is developing, greater precision is being sought in resonant frequency detection. It is becoming of importance to improve the short circuit aspect of the piston and the end of the cylinder as ends of a transmission line and to prevent leakage of the electromagnetic waves from the cylinder.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,429 the problem of electromagnetic wave leakage from the cylinder is recognized and a sealing structure, made up of a split ring over an expansion member positioned in a groove of the piston, is described.